This is the text in my previous blog before the make over
"Meaningful Learning for Meaningful Life
Journal writing is an immersion technique which goal is to encourage writing habit and to develop fluency as well as to improve motivation and attitude towards writing. Journal writing categorised into two: 'Personal' journal - learners write diary-like accounts of daily experience and 'intellectual' journal - students reflect on reading, lectures, class discussion, or their own ideas (Kern, 2000). This journal is part of my intellectual journal, the personal one can be viewed in the link."
I had this ideas to continue my friendster blog about ideas and thought and my obsession about making meaning in my every writing directly and practice my written English. Using this blogger can definitely facilitate all the bits and pieces of templates, instead of using the friendster one. I realise now making meaning doesn't always in a direct way but the salient meaning making come through the inderct one. So now I reconsider my former direct method into the new one. In the new one I will use my native language mixed with my little foreign language.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
English is a Crazy Language
This articles might be just for fun.
It's quoted from QMT, May 2006/ Jumadil Awwal 1427. Vol2, No.3
English is a
Crazy Language
THERE IS NO EGG IN eggplant nor ham in
hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England or
French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies
while sweetbreads, which aren’’t sweet, are
meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore
its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work
slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea
pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And
why is it that writers write but fingers don’t
fing, grocers don’’t groce and hammers don’t
ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the
plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese.
So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2
indices?
Doesn’’t it seem crazy that you can make
amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get
rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’’t preachers
praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a
humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers
should be committed to an asylum for the
verbally insane. In what language do people
recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be
the same, while a wise man and a wise guy
are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a
language in which your house can burn up as
it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by
going on.
English was invented by people,not computers,
and it reflects the creativity of the human
race(which,of course, isn’’t a race at all). That
is why, when the stars are out,they are visible,
but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
More Examples:
1. The bandage was wound around the
wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse
more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in
the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he
thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the
bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the
bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. I had to subject the subject to a series of
tests.
12. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
13. How can I intimate this to my most
intimate friend?
14. There was a row among the oarsmen about
how to row.
15. They were too close to the door to
close it.
16. The buck does funny things when the does
are present.
17. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a
sewer line.
18. To help with planting, the farmer taught his
sow to sow.
19. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
20. After a number of injections my jaw
got number.
21. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed
a tear.
22. Use water to water the plants.
23. Get the cook to cook.
It's quoted from QMT, May 2006/ Jumadil Awwal 1427. Vol2, No.3
English is a
Crazy Language
THERE IS NO EGG IN eggplant nor ham in
hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England or
French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies
while sweetbreads, which aren’’t sweet, are
meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore
its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work
slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea
pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And
why is it that writers write but fingers don’t
fing, grocers don’’t groce and hammers don’t
ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the
plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese.
So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2
indices?
Doesn’’t it seem crazy that you can make
amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get
rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’’t preachers
praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a
humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers
should be committed to an asylum for the
verbally insane. In what language do people
recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be
the same, while a wise man and a wise guy
are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a
language in which your house can burn up as
it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by
going on.
English was invented by people,not computers,
and it reflects the creativity of the human
race(which,of course, isn’’t a race at all). That
is why, when the stars are out,they are visible,
but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
More Examples:
1. The bandage was wound around the
wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse
more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in
the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he
thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the
bass drum.
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the
bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. I had to subject the subject to a series of
tests.
12. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
13. How can I intimate this to my most
intimate friend?
14. There was a row among the oarsmen about
how to row.
15. They were too close to the door to
close it.
16. The buck does funny things when the does
are present.
17. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a
sewer line.
18. To help with planting, the farmer taught his
sow to sow.
19. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
20. After a number of injections my jaw
got number.
21. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed
a tear.
22. Use water to water the plants.
23. Get the cook to cook.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Multiliteracies
Key Concept of Multiliteracies
To begin with, a pedagogy of multiliteracies is proposed by The New London Group (2000) as Design with its goal to prepare learners to interpret, express, and negotiate meaning in multifarious contexts. In the terms of Cope and Kalantzis (2006), the starting point of multiliteracy is to understand how texts are located and produced socially and historically. In this way, the New London Group, according to Cope and Kalantzis (2006), provides an organizing metaphor of meaning-as-design. In the same way, Kern (2000) sees the proposal as the design of meaning. Design is conceptualised as a way of meaning making in multimodal texts using metalanguage by virtues of understanding the pattern or grammar of semiotic and linguistic features (Cope & Kalantzis, 2006; The New London Group, 2000). Specifically, the Design consists of the Available Design, Designing, and Redesigned.
Design is used “to describe the forms of meaning” (The New London Group, 2000, p. 20). Available Design, in particular, is referred to as any forms of semiotic resources a particular society has developed from time to time that stand ready for the making meaning practices. Furthermore, in the context of classroom pedagogy, the teacher and students need a language (and or metalanguage) to describe the forms of meaning which is represented in the Available Design, for example, website, films, and photography. The patterns of the Available Design include the linguistic Design (vocabulary, transitivity, modality, coherence, etc), visual Design (images, page layout, screen, formats), audio Design (music and sound affects), gestural Design (body language), spatial Design (environmental and architectural spaces), and multimodal Design (the relation of two or more modes of meaning in a dynamic relationship).
While Available Design is concerned with the literacy practices of text interpretation, and to some extent, of text production, Designing is a further, consequent, process of text production. In order to produce texts, learners are required to be active not only to read, listen, and view texts, but also to write, speak, and shape these texts. In this case, Designing process is a process of transforming knowledge, social relation and identity, by means of producing new construction and representation of reality. Moreover, the completion of Designing lies in transformation, that is, the attainment along the processes of recycling the old material in the Available Design into new design of meaning (Kern, 2000).
Redesigned, on the other hand, involves the outcome from the Available Design through the process of Designing. The transformed meaning produced in the Redesigned will be positioned back to the Available Design; this is the point in which the cycle of three aspects of Design is complete.
Of primary importance in the three aspects of Design is the position of the Designer whose role is critical to make the three aspects of Design run as expected. In the context of literacy practices, therefore, Designer refers to the teacher. He or she selects and provides resources, sets up the conducive environment, and gives instructions for learning.
Multiliteracies Frameworks
As a matter of practice, the New London Group (2000) suggests four multiliteracies frameworks, those are the Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing and Transformed practice. What follows is the detailed description of how the multiliteracies framework is implemented.
Situated Practice is a learners’ immersion into meaningful practice and their own authentic life experience. It involves the use of Available Design to make meaning. In relation to life experience, Cope and Kalantzis (in Pahl & Rowsell, 2005) suggest that Situated Practice will work based on the learners’ interest, real life experience with their prior knowledge, from home, school, communities for example their familiarity with TV, computer, internet, videogames and so forth. In the case of the Unit planning, I utilize their familiarity with internet including website and weblog. Weblog, in particular, is fairly popular among the freshmen because it is easy to create. Moreover, compared with a website which is more complicated, to create and maintain a weblog, the freshmen are required practically to follow three simple steps in the dashboard (see figure 1).
(figure 1. http://www.blogger.com/start)
The skill of creating a weblog is categorised as an expert novice (The New London Group, 2000). “[W]eblog entries,” Blood (2000) puts forth, “are made by typing directly into the browser and with the click of a button are instantly published on the internet”. Publishing directly in the internet is a kind of motivating activity to keep writing (to be discussed in the next section). A weblog can be seen as a kind of online journal that someone can continuously update with his or her own words, ideas, and thoughts through software that enables him/her to do it easily. Weblog is a multimodal Design involving Linguistic Design, Visual Design and can be Audio Design. Most of the content of the weblog is personal journal which involves Linguistic Design in which language is used to make meaning along with such elements as vocabulary and metaphor, transitivity, nominalisation of processes and local and global coherence. To be integrated in the Multimodal Design, Visual Design and Audio Design usually come along with the Linguistic design to support the meaning-making, for example, writing journal about event in the university (see. figure 2). At this point, the students can upload a picture related with the topic of the posting in the weblog. In addition, Visual Design is also displayed on the computer screen, such as frames, hyperlink, colours, layout, backgrouding and foregrounding. In their real life, students are exposed to reading and viewing other journals on the weblogs. My objective in the Unit is that students enable students to design a weblog.
(figure 2, http://ollscoil.blogspot.com)
Overt Instruction is defined as the use of metalanguages, content and function of the discourse of practice (The New London Group, 2000). It is a kind of teacher’s intervention in the meaning making process by means of scaffolding (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). In this process, the students develop a language that describes how they make meaning by employing multimodal resources. They describe, for instance, in the Available Design, the patterns such as the Linguistic Design which involves content and sentence construction. In Visual design, the students, also, describe the pattern of the layout in which they can choose and modify the weblog template and setting, interpret why the picture has to be in a certain way, as well as interpret the colour they use, for example, green in figure 3 to symbolise Hulk, and the image of Hulk to symbolise strength and hero. Finally, they view the meaning of the journal writing in different ways.
example
(figure 3. http://incrediblehulk.blogspot.com/)
Critical Framing is seen as a reflection of what the purpose of design is, who the readers of the weblog journal are, and who the writers are. In this stage, students reconceive their learning around their own culture and the cultures of others (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). From their viewing personal journals in weblogs, students discuss the different cultural contexts because the personal journals can be written in many languages as can be seen in figure 4. In the case of my students, they will read in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Eventually, they will come to understand why they are different when they relate their local context, values and belief with the global ones, such as in figure 4, the local context is represented in the language use; values and belief is shown on the template design, and the global one is implied in figure 3. The teacher’s role in this stage is to help them ‘deneutralise’ the text and make strange what they have learnt. Put differently, students are helped to ‘problematise’ and challenge the texts as ‘text analysts’ in the Four Resources Model terms. Thereby, they can “constructively critique it; account for its cultural location; creatively extend and apply it; and eventually innovate their own, within old communities and in new ones.”(The New London Group, 2000, p. 34).
(figure 4. http://dust-raider.blogspot.com/)
Transformed Practice allows students to apply and modify what they have learned. This is part of the Redesigning text such as creating new texts on the basis of the existing ones. This practice primarily deals with the application of the Design in different contexts as a result of Overt Instruction and Critical Framing. In the Unit planning, the students may write their personal journals in their own context. for example, to be more useful in developing their language learning (see figure 4), they will write their journal for sharing with readers about their extraordinary language learning experience instead of writing a non-topical journal, or they will transform ‘personal’ journal into ‘intellectual’ journal (Kern, 2000, p. 193). Figure 4 exemplifies the result of Transform Practice. This Redesigned is going to be the Available Design later in the next cycle.
(figure 4. http://roni-languagelearningjournal.blogspot.com)
To begin with, a pedagogy of multiliteracies is proposed by The New London Group (2000) as Design with its goal to prepare learners to interpret, express, and negotiate meaning in multifarious contexts. In the terms of Cope and Kalantzis (2006), the starting point of multiliteracy is to understand how texts are located and produced socially and historically. In this way, the New London Group, according to Cope and Kalantzis (2006), provides an organizing metaphor of meaning-as-design. In the same way, Kern (2000) sees the proposal as the design of meaning. Design is conceptualised as a way of meaning making in multimodal texts using metalanguage by virtues of understanding the pattern or grammar of semiotic and linguistic features (Cope & Kalantzis, 2006; The New London Group, 2000). Specifically, the Design consists of the Available Design, Designing, and Redesigned.
Design is used “to describe the forms of meaning” (The New London Group, 2000, p. 20). Available Design, in particular, is referred to as any forms of semiotic resources a particular society has developed from time to time that stand ready for the making meaning practices. Furthermore, in the context of classroom pedagogy, the teacher and students need a language (and or metalanguage) to describe the forms of meaning which is represented in the Available Design, for example, website, films, and photography. The patterns of the Available Design include the linguistic Design (vocabulary, transitivity, modality, coherence, etc), visual Design (images, page layout, screen, formats), audio Design (music and sound affects), gestural Design (body language), spatial Design (environmental and architectural spaces), and multimodal Design (the relation of two or more modes of meaning in a dynamic relationship).
While Available Design is concerned with the literacy practices of text interpretation, and to some extent, of text production, Designing is a further, consequent, process of text production. In order to produce texts, learners are required to be active not only to read, listen, and view texts, but also to write, speak, and shape these texts. In this case, Designing process is a process of transforming knowledge, social relation and identity, by means of producing new construction and representation of reality. Moreover, the completion of Designing lies in transformation, that is, the attainment along the processes of recycling the old material in the Available Design into new design of meaning (Kern, 2000).
Redesigned, on the other hand, involves the outcome from the Available Design through the process of Designing. The transformed meaning produced in the Redesigned will be positioned back to the Available Design; this is the point in which the cycle of three aspects of Design is complete.
Of primary importance in the three aspects of Design is the position of the Designer whose role is critical to make the three aspects of Design run as expected. In the context of literacy practices, therefore, Designer refers to the teacher. He or she selects and provides resources, sets up the conducive environment, and gives instructions for learning.
Multiliteracies Frameworks
As a matter of practice, the New London Group (2000) suggests four multiliteracies frameworks, those are the Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing and Transformed practice. What follows is the detailed description of how the multiliteracies framework is implemented.
Situated Practice is a learners’ immersion into meaningful practice and their own authentic life experience. It involves the use of Available Design to make meaning. In relation to life experience, Cope and Kalantzis (in Pahl & Rowsell, 2005) suggest that Situated Practice will work based on the learners’ interest, real life experience with their prior knowledge, from home, school, communities for example their familiarity with TV, computer, internet, videogames and so forth. In the case of the Unit planning, I utilize their familiarity with internet including website and weblog. Weblog, in particular, is fairly popular among the freshmen because it is easy to create. Moreover, compared with a website which is more complicated, to create and maintain a weblog, the freshmen are required practically to follow three simple steps in the dashboard (see figure 1).
(figure 1. http://www.blogger.com/start)
The skill of creating a weblog is categorised as an expert novice (The New London Group, 2000). “[W]eblog entries,” Blood (2000) puts forth, “are made by typing directly into the browser and with the click of a button are instantly published on the internet”. Publishing directly in the internet is a kind of motivating activity to keep writing (to be discussed in the next section). A weblog can be seen as a kind of online journal that someone can continuously update with his or her own words, ideas, and thoughts through software that enables him/her to do it easily. Weblog is a multimodal Design involving Linguistic Design, Visual Design and can be Audio Design. Most of the content of the weblog is personal journal which involves Linguistic Design in which language is used to make meaning along with such elements as vocabulary and metaphor, transitivity, nominalisation of processes and local and global coherence. To be integrated in the Multimodal Design, Visual Design and Audio Design usually come along with the Linguistic design to support the meaning-making, for example, writing journal about event in the university (see. figure 2). At this point, the students can upload a picture related with the topic of the posting in the weblog. In addition, Visual Design is also displayed on the computer screen, such as frames, hyperlink, colours, layout, backgrouding and foregrounding. In their real life, students are exposed to reading and viewing other journals on the weblogs. My objective in the Unit is that students enable students to design a weblog.
(figure 2, http://ollscoil.blogspot.com)
Overt Instruction is defined as the use of metalanguages, content and function of the discourse of practice (The New London Group, 2000). It is a kind of teacher’s intervention in the meaning making process by means of scaffolding (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). In this process, the students develop a language that describes how they make meaning by employing multimodal resources. They describe, for instance, in the Available Design, the patterns such as the Linguistic Design which involves content and sentence construction. In Visual design, the students, also, describe the pattern of the layout in which they can choose and modify the weblog template and setting, interpret why the picture has to be in a certain way, as well as interpret the colour they use, for example, green in figure 3 to symbolise Hulk, and the image of Hulk to symbolise strength and hero. Finally, they view the meaning of the journal writing in different ways.
example
(figure 3. http://incrediblehulk.blogspot.com/)
Critical Framing is seen as a reflection of what the purpose of design is, who the readers of the weblog journal are, and who the writers are. In this stage, students reconceive their learning around their own culture and the cultures of others (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). From their viewing personal journals in weblogs, students discuss the different cultural contexts because the personal journals can be written in many languages as can be seen in figure 4. In the case of my students, they will read in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Eventually, they will come to understand why they are different when they relate their local context, values and belief with the global ones, such as in figure 4, the local context is represented in the language use; values and belief is shown on the template design, and the global one is implied in figure 3. The teacher’s role in this stage is to help them ‘deneutralise’ the text and make strange what they have learnt. Put differently, students are helped to ‘problematise’ and challenge the texts as ‘text analysts’ in the Four Resources Model terms. Thereby, they can “constructively critique it; account for its cultural location; creatively extend and apply it; and eventually innovate their own, within old communities and in new ones.”(The New London Group, 2000, p. 34).
(figure 4. http://dust-raider.blogspot.com/)
Transformed Practice allows students to apply and modify what they have learned. This is part of the Redesigning text such as creating new texts on the basis of the existing ones. This practice primarily deals with the application of the Design in different contexts as a result of Overt Instruction and Critical Framing. In the Unit planning, the students may write their personal journals in their own context. for example, to be more useful in developing their language learning (see figure 4), they will write their journal for sharing with readers about their extraordinary language learning experience instead of writing a non-topical journal, or they will transform ‘personal’ journal into ‘intellectual’ journal (Kern, 2000, p. 193). Figure 4 exemplifies the result of Transform Practice. This Redesigned is going to be the Available Design later in the next cycle.
(figure 4. http://roni-languagelearningjournal.blogspot.com)
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